


Curtain Call

by UmbreonGurl



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: AU, Angst, Gen, Major spoilers for all routes, Time Travel, no beta we die like Glenn, time loops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22312249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmbreonGurl/pseuds/UmbreonGurl
Summary: If one forgets history, they are doomed to repeat it.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	Curtain Call

The seventh time Byleth arrives at Garreg Mach Monastery, she believes it to be her first. She unknowingly makes the same decisions, the same choices, and somehow, she can’t help but feel a bit of deja vu.

Things go about the same for her eighth, her ninth, her tenth, her eleventh, and her twelfth. One by one, she unknowingly repeats the mistakes she had made the first time around.

But this time, when asked that same question, she doesn’t say no.

The thirteenth time Byleth finds herself in the forest, she has a brother. His name is Byleth, hers is Bylese, and they fight alongside one another like two halves of the same whole.

In a way, they are. They are twins. 

She is slightly shorter than usual, this time around, and it doesn’t take too much adjustment to get back into the swing of things. 

Hanneman teaches a few classes, but he does not take one for his own. Not as a homeroom teacher.

Byleth takes the Blue Lions, and Bylese, the Black Eagles.

They grade papers side by side, and he leans over and makes adjustments to her plans, and she does the same to his.

She uses red ink, and he uses blue.

They are close, so much so that some call them thick as thieves. 

They find themselves on opposite sides of the battlefield in the battle for Garreg Mach, and he stabs her with a dagger that matches the one on her hip.

He cries, and she cries, and neither wanted it to come to this, but thus is war.

And it’s back to the forest once again.

The fourteenth time Byleth finds herself in a forest, there are not three students to meet.

She passes through it without conflict alongside her father’s mercenary company, and they make it to Faerghus without issue.

Byleth is still too caught up in the fact that this whole situation just isn’t right—they should have been there, why weren’t they there?— that the name of the person in charge of their next contract doesn’t even cross her mind until she finds herself face to face with the same students she should have met in that forest.

And this time, they are not allies.

Her fight with Jeritza is well balanced, and neither side seems to have the advantage, at first. But when an arrow makes its way into her thigh and she stumbles, he takes the opportunity, and his sword slides right into her stomach.

“Well played, Emile,” she wheezes. She can swear she sees his eyes widen slightly, before he frowns and stabs her again, this time, in the chest.

And the world fades to black once more.

The fifteenth time Byleth finds herself in the forest, she is not Byleth, nor Bylina, nor Bylese, or anything remotely similar.

She finds herself with an axe in her hands, wearing rough furs and leathers instead of her favorite coat, covered in scars, and facing down a girl in red. And beside that very same girl, is her. Well, not anymore, at least. 

It’s a weird feeling, to look yourself in the eyes. 

Are they thinking the same things she does? Are they like her, doomed to repeat from the start again and again? What try are _they_ on? 

She has so many questions, but an axe collides with her chest before she gets a chance to ask a single one.

Try sixteen, she _is_ the girl in red. Her hands are covered in silken white gloves, her hair is white as snow, and the axe that sits in her hands feels familiarly unfamiliar.

She talks, and her voice is not her own.

This time, she doesn’t come face to face with a version of herself. When she meets Father, he is alone, and she is not his daughter, nor his son. And even more unsettling, is the fact that he wears the armor of a knight.

“You kids get to safety,” he says. “I’ll handle things from here.”

She nods, and hides in the nearby town’s inn with Claude and Dimitri— _like a coward._

She doesn’t speak a word until Claude addresses her.

“Something on your mind, princess?” he says. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

She glances up. 

“It’s nothing,” she replies. 

She doesn’t know how to be Byleth, she doesn’t know how to be a bandit, and she most _certainly_ doesn’t know how to be Edelgard.

Claude shrugs, and they are left alone until Father comes to escort them back to Garreg Mach safely.

She keeps mostly quiet on the walk back, and as they pass through the gates, she catches a glimpse of someone looking down on them from the balcony.

Much to her surprise, that person is not Rhea, but Seteth.

“Archbishop Seth,” he is called, here.

She makes a break for her dorm room as soon as she can, and when the keys in her pocket do not turn the lock, she pauses.

She had forgotten, it _isn’t_ her her dorm anymore, and these _aren’t_ her keys.

She makes her way to Edelgard’s room, and quickly breathes a sigh of relief as she shuts the door behind her.

Finally, peace.

She lies on her bed and stares at the ceiling for a good hour or so before there is a knock at her door.

And she has to stop herself from gaping when she opens the door, and behind it is Caspar. 

“Milady,” he says, “I apologize for not insisting more that I come with you. I should have known better than to trust the Knights of Seiros with your safety.”

He is Caspar, yet at the same time he is not. His posture is no longer slouched, he is taller, leaner, and his uniform is neatly pressed. But the most glaring difference, she finds, is the fact that he is talking like… well, Hubert.

She navigates her way through a familiar yet unfamiliar world until war comes yet again.

Only this time, it is not Edelgard who initiates it, but Claude, storming across Fodlan’s Locket with an army that would have made the Edelgard she knew green with envy.

Edelgard does not start the war, this time, but she does end it. 

She makes one last stand at Garreg Mach, axe in hand. 

And after, she is back in the forest once again.

Try seventeen, the forest is full of holes. 

In the sky, in the earth, in the trees, small pockets of dark, corroding energy tear away at anything in their path.

When she asks Father about them, he gives her a confused glance.

“Holes?” he says. “What holes?”

He cannot see them. And neither can anyone else. 

She tries sticking her hand in one of them, at one point. She knows it’s foolish, and a dangerous move, but it’s not like dying kills her—not _really_ —so what’s the harm?

Her hand twitches, and there is some sort of strange energy that causes it to fade in and out of reality, warping as the seconds tick by.

A few minutes later, she is back to normal. 

She continues the rest of that try as normal, until she is sent back into the forest yet again.

Try eighteen, the holes become larger, and far more numerous. She still doesn’t know what is causing them, but she knows that they aren’t good. They aren’t _right_ , and are a clear sign that something is completely, utterly _wrong._

She is careful to avoid the holes until, in an unfortunate slip-up, a demonic beast sends her flying right into one. 

She is sent floating into the void, and for once, that accursed question isn’t there.

Instead, there is but a single, ominous line.

**ERROR: Game Data Corrupted.**

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't resist writing another one shot to go with the last one I did uwu


End file.
